A group of young Hip Hop lovers in Harare has come together to form a magazine to market the genre. Named The Platform, the magazine has been launched first in its mini version and plans are to make it into a full 80 page publication in the near future.
One of the founding members, Bryan Mudarikwa, told The Zimbo Jam in a phone interview that there is no one marketing Hip Hop in Zimbabwe and this magazine is a means to do just that. “People confuse Hip Hop with Urban Grooves,” Bryan said, “Our aim is to show that Hip Hop exists in Zimbabwe.”
Co-founders of the magazine include lady rapper, Blackbird and Jonathan Samaneka. The first issue of the magazine comes with a free DVD entitled The Platform Mixtape I. Reading through some of the articles in the magazine, one gets the impression that these are young people who know their stuff.
To quote the editorial of the first issue: “Hip Hop in Zimbabwe has been alive since the 80’s with cats like DJ Mujay killing it on the turn-tables and rap crews like Lethal Language and Of Unkown Origin holding it down with the raps.
“Two and a half decades down the line the culture has grown but still remains in the underground with mostly the artists in the Diaspora and the cats in the fashion element of it being the ones eating from the culture.
“There are a few exceptions like Outspoken from the duo Dialectric Blue living off of Hip Hop and still living in Zimbabwe. Because of the imbalances in Zim-hop twenty-something years after its birth, The Platform Magazine has been created. It is a platform for the correction of the imbalances that exist in the culture… (zimbojam)